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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Asparagus Hunting in Umbria

Eating What Grows Wild

Remember that I'm city-bred and nearly all the food I ate came from groceries. I'd never eaten food taken directly from the earth ... as I now do. These days, we have a pretty large vegetable patch and fruit trees on Saturna Island. 

But it took living in Italy to find the wild things worth eating: mushrooms (you need to know them well), a new to me berry (corbezzoli) that seems to grow everywhere here,  and the harder to find wild asparagus. 

   

Here's  how the wild asparagus look, taken from a site with a great frittata recipe for them (click here). The wild variety are more pungently flavourful than the more anemic store-bought kind.


Where and How to Look 

Pick sunny day to go asparagus-hunting and look along the road verges for wispy slim fronds that poke out  a bit like rosemary.  It took me awhile to catch on to how to stalk them (punny, yes). An Italian friend nimbly helped me on our walks to discern how and where to look for these treats.

The trick to finding these reticent delicacies is to look for the silver-green, unkempt, and straggly fern-like bushes that tangle around other plants. Once you see one, they become pretty unmistakable, and they scratch your hand. The more brightly green little asparagi grow among this dishevelment. .. But once seen, you've got a good idea of what to look for.

Aspargus Hunting and Soul Searching

Asparagus hunting was the goal , but anything would have been  a good-enough reason on a bright day. It's really glorious: the temperature is just right for walking, the sky is filled with sun and color and just enough clouds to make it interesting. And of course the birds are in full voice. I don't know much about birds, so it surprises me that they sing even at night.

I was thinking that everything here seems so well placed, so settled in, giving a very satisfying impression of itself. Except for the apparently anarchic asparagus bushes. Of course, this land has been grazed and growing for centuries, with much of it cultivated. But still, a look in any direction shows everything growing and looking just so! As if nature itself is guided by the Italian notion of  fare una bella figura.  

Yet this high Umbrian land is not an easy place for cultivated gardens, given all the rocks in the soil. Much work still needs to be done manually. And the rocks that keep piling up year after year as vegetable gardens are tilled become little walls. The earth keeps growing rocks, it seems! We've seen the same gardens tilled in this community as we did when we stayed here six years ago, and there are still more rocks.

As I walked along the paths, it was easy to imagine what prompted St. Francis to talk to the birds. And  how clearly the birds must have talked to him. The birds really do seem to call out to me when I'm out walking here. Some whistle like a friend down the road might do to get your attention. Others sound sharper, like New Yorkers calling a cab. Others seem to flirt or tease. Others just sing bits of melodies,  chirp, trill, warble, or even stutter their message. They don't seem to mind sharing the countryside with you. And all the many cuckoos around here form a  persistent chorus! I've unofficially named our road la Via dei Cucoli in their honour.

As much as I've loved cities (hey, I'm originally a New York girl!) with their museums and hubs of culture and human variety, I've come to need the countryside as much or even more. Its peace, its invitation to roam slowly about ), its changing sights and varieties of natural sounds. I know it isn't always idyllic in the countryside. But leave me to my moment here... and share it.

Another Umbria.... a painting 

After foraging in the countryside, I made this fanciful painting. Here it is:,Another Umbria:


More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News here.












 




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4 comments:

  1. Looks good, Janet -- each time you make a post, also share it on Facebook (you can do so by clicking the "f" at the bottom of each post) so all your FB friends will be notified that you have a new post up

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  2. I just want to escape into your video...

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  3. Hey, Elise. Anytime... come right in, sit right down, and have a cuppa...

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  4. Hi Janet -- what's so interesting for me is to see everything green. I'm never there in the spring, always August. All sounds great. --Frank

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